


we live on the edge of the sword

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, d'Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers Series) - All Media Types
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Established Relationship, F/M, Human K-2SO, Inspired By Tumblr, Porn with Feelings, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Shameless Smut, Tumblr Prompt, and she is still a dangerous woman, but he is still a musketeer, for all canons involved anyway, not quite Athos and Milady, spiritassassin hinted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:25:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: It still tears at Cassian's heart to see Jyn get pushed so close to the edge of death.Is it any wonder he works so hard to help her out, and to help her live another day?(And in the second chapter: Jyn does what she can to keep Cassian alive.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charis/gifts).



Bells, bells ringing in the distance, Cassian thinks, and maybe the wars between the various city-states were already receding into bleak blank memory but the bells still only ever ring in times of great joy and in times of great danger, and there are no festivals today, no flowers spilling out onto the cobbled sidewalks, no lilting music of flutes.

He isn’t hurrying, he tells himself. He doesn’t need to hurry. 

Still he can hear the echoes of his own boots on the road, and still he is moving more and more quickly, heels all but striking sparks from the weathered stones as he rounds the corner. Shocked faces moving out of his way, and the sun beating down upon the crown of his head, the palms of his hands growing damp, chafing against his battered gloves.

Behind him, someone calls his name, and he doesn’t know who it is and he never slows, never deviates from his course, until the walls of the tunnels leading to the center of the city close in on him and fall away, and he’s breathing more and more heavily, the twin familiar weights of his sword and his revolver already in his hands when he can’t remember drawing the one and cocking the other, and there is an implacable line of silver tracery upon black stuff before him -- he shoulders those colors aside, and never hears the shock or the disapproval, or the voices full of censure and gossip.

He looks up, instead, at the tree in the square, and at the mockery of a stage that has been set up just below one of its low-hanging branches, bright young green leaves hanging still even in the breeze as though to protest the shameful proceedings --

Cassian can hear, now, the droning sounds of a man in rich red robes speaking. The words do not penetrate his brain. He does not hear or see the grating and the flashing of swords as they are pulled from their scabbards. The smell of gunpowder is meaningless to him. Sneers and frowns on the unfriendly faces surrounding him.

All he can see is the woman.

He can taste, heavy on his tongue, the heavy scents of old copper and bright iron and snuffed-out candles, clinging to her dark hair and to the freckles dappling her skin. The lavender soap that she uses, lingering on the back of her neck, and the clean linen of her shift. 

He can hear, echoing in the secret places of his mind, the urgent sweet cadences of her voice, muffled into his shoulder, glorious and debauched, shivering away into high gasps.

He can almost feel the scars of her against his hands, the lines of old wounds raised into pink and silver numbness on her skin -- and paramount among those scars the one that encircles her neck, that she never covers up because she had cut herself down, because she had saved herself. 

Even now she still holds her head high. Even now he can see her with her bared throat, that unmistakable clench in her bruised jaw, the wounded pride that compelled all eyes to look her way.

Cassian swallows around the searing weight of his rage, and he’s already lunging before he can even see that someone is moving his way: the whispering flourish of his long blade through the air. The fine steel, blued and rippled, meets very little resistance even as he slashes through a heavy jerkin and then cuts deep into the skin and sinew beneath. 

He leaves a splash of red and a dying breath in his wake, red that he shakes off his sword in a movement that’s as second nature to him as breathing. Crosses the space to stand at the woman’s side, to place his body in front of hers. 

Her hands have been bound in front of her, and it’s a small mistake, nearly insignificant, in the face of all the stupidities that the people of this place have piled upon her shoulders: and it’s the mistake that allows her to reach for the knife that he keeps tucked into the small of his back, plain and weathered and well-used and reserved for her alone -- it glitters as she throws it into the air and then holds out her hands, so the blade, tumbling down, slashes through the crude ropes against her skin.

One more stroke to sever the length of rough cloth binding her ankles, and she steps to his side. Holds out a hand, expectant.

Cassian feels himself smile. He doesn’t take his eyes off the advancing enemies, rattling in their fine cloaks and their plumed hats. But he does take her offered hand -- he brushes a kiss against her palm, and he can still smell faint traces of lavender despite the sweat and the dust and the grime.

She smiles.

And tightens her grip on the knife in her other hand.

“This woman walks free today, and I will give my life if I must to make sure she stays free,” Cassian hears himself say, and the words are distorted with his disgust and his rage, the rage that the woman by his side is practically radiating. “Stop her in any way, or stand between her and her objective, and I will make sure that you die.”

Ugly faces spewing forth ugly voices in cacophonous response: “She is a traitor!” “She is a thief!” “She is a spy!”

“That last one is true,” she says, and the smile that stretches her lush mouth is not a beautiful smile. It is the smile of a hunter that has spotted the prey. It is the smile of the knight who will clearly win the joust. It is the smile of a just woman, righteous in the fury of her cause, burning with it, fiercely alive with it. 

“You will destroy us all,” the man in the red robes all but screeches.

“And I would almost do it without the thought of asking for a day’s wages,” she says, and Cassian smiles at her throwing her defiant laughter into that hateful face. “But a woman must eat and a woman must dress.” She looks down at her bare feet and her stained shift. “And a woman needs money if she’s to spend her time cutting preening fools like you -- and your masters -- to size.”

He recognizes the tension in her shoulders, the way her foot slides back, the movement of the muscles in her arms, and so he’s already a step clear of her when she suddenly winds up and hurls the knife -- which comes to a sudden rest in the throat of the man in the red robes.

That man drops to the stones with his shock still frozen on his now-lifeless face.

“Jyn! Cassian!”

The thunder of hooves and the clatter of boots and weapons and armor, and Cassian grins as the people still in the square scatter, suddenly, lest they be trampled by several horses and three grim-faced riders.

The man in the black robes and the thick rope wrapped around his middle for a belt dismounts first, and throws a pack at the woman’s feet. “I’m afraid the bath will have to wait,” he says.

Breeches and a clean shirt. Stockings and sturdy boots and gloves. Leather armor -- and last but not the least, a length of black ribbon, and the woman sighs in relief as she ties her hair away from her face. “Thank you, Master Chirrut. As always, you are too good to me.”

“I helped,” the man who canters his horse to Chirrut’s side says. As he speaks, he unfastens the straps lashed around his much bulkier frame, and passes several revolvers over. “Take care of my guns.”

Jyn laughs, and leans up on the tips of her toes to clasp one rough hand. “Don’t I always?”

A pleased grunt, and a twitch of the mouth that is as good as a laugh.

And finally, the third rider slides off his horse and wipes the sweat from his face. “I was really worried that we wouldn’t make it.”

“While I always had -- and always will have -- faith in you, Bodhi,” he says, clasping his friend’s shoulder.

Bodhi smiles, looks down, not abashed at all.

“Plan,” the mounted man grunts. 

“I suggest we scatter,” Chirrut says, after a moment’s contemplation. “Baze and I shall watch your backs, and Bodhi shall also lay a false trail.”

Jyn smiles again. “I pity those who would stand in your way.”

“Perhaps it might be some small consolation that they die not unshriven,” Chirrut says with a tiny movement of his shoulder, only a little insolent -- not to mention sacrilegious.

Perhaps that is the reason why Jyn throws her head back and laughs, a rich sound in the still air.

Suddenly the laugh dies on her lips, and she retrieves the knife before whirling toward one of the other tunnels -- empty, now, except for the sounds approaching it, the magnified martial rhythms of marching soldiers on the move.

“Musketeers,” Cassian says, then, leaping to one of the horses trailing Bodhi. “Back to barracks as quickly as possible. And tell Kay to send the usual words on to the lords and ladies of our Alliance.”

“God willing, we will all see each other in a few days’ time,” Chirrut says, and then he is spurring his horse on and out of sight. Baze’s face is locked in his usual grimace.

Jyn kisses Bodhi’s cheek, and then he, too, is gone.

And then she’s throwing herself into the saddle of the last horse, she’s tying the extra knots and straps into place that will allow her to turn around and fire her guns and still guide her horse, and she’s nodding at him, once. “Lead the way, Captain, and rest easy that I will watch your back.”

“I would rather be watching yours,” he says with a smile.

She blows a kiss in his direction -- and then whips her horse around and draws one of the revolvers, cocks it, points it towards the tunnel. “Still clear, but not for long.”

“Then let us be away,” he says, and he calls out to the horse, which leaps away, graceful and swift.

Jyn stays within sight on his left side, protecting him, as they race out into the countryside, as they ford the river that loops around the town, as they turn down a series of increasingly rocky lanes and finally into a silently looming, silently welcoming forest.

Though his instincts tell him to ride until their very mounts are exhausted, it’s the glimpse of the drawn pain in Jyn’s eyes that pulls him up short. 

He’s grateful for the makeshift shelter of a hollow in the forest, for the stream that trickles its deep and cold winding way at his feet.

He turns away from his lathered but silent horse just in time to catch Jyn, to steady her on her tottering feet.

She consents to lean on him as they enter the cave, and he chokes back his alarm. He reaches for the contents of his pockets and his saddlebags instead. Bandages, salve, and a small flask of fortified wine. A handful of hard biscuits. 

“If we can push on in the morning, we’ll be somewhere safe and we can feed you a proper meal,” he says, gently, wrapping Jyn in the cloak that had been the last thing Bodhi had pressed into his arms before leaving. “For now -- you’ll have to eat just a little. Just enough to regain your strength.”

“It is not the first time I’ve been thrown into prison,” she says, wincing now, letting her true feelings show now. “I suppose I should just be grateful that I was not too roughed up.”

He bites down on promises of vengeance. Strokes the hair away from her sweat-damp face instead.

And she leans into his touch. Her hand on his shoulder, tugging.

He leans down at her urging, and sighs as she kisses him, grateful that she’s chosen him to show her gentleness to. 

“I have missed you,” he breathes against her skin. Against her bruises.

“And I you. After this I’ll stay by your side for a while,” she whispers back. “I -- you were right, you know. I did need to have someone watching my back.”

“You have the others, and you have me -- we want to help you.”

“Yes. Thank you.” 

When she blinks, wearily, he soothes a fingertip over her cheek. Offers her a few bites of biscuit, a swallow of wine and a swallow of cold water.

“No more food -- you know what happened the last time,” she says.

He nods.

The night is mild and he doesn’t need to build a fire to keep her warm -- he only needs to hold her close, he only needs to let her curl trustingly into his side.

“Not asleep,” she says.

“I know you’re not.” He runs his fingertips very lightly down her back. He wants to ask her questions about the past few days, jailed once again, and he doesn’t. 

He hums, softly, instead.

“I’ve heard you sing that, haven’t I?” Jyn asks, eventually. “It sounds like the first song you ever sang for me.”

“It is,” and he smiles when she chuckles and presses her lips to his throat. 

The words slip out as he continues:

Es imposible mi cielo  
Tan separados vivir.

“Thank you for -- for this. Again.”

“We protect each other,” he says, softly.

“Always,” Jyn says.


	2. Chapter 2

Weight of a knife in one hand and the coiled tension of a fist, cocked and ready to let fly at whoever’s walked in on her this time, and Jyn breathes out, a long controlled hiss, and it’s only at the end of it that she truly understands where she is. A low ceiling of wood in darkly polished beams, painted curlicues only just visible in flickering light. She turns her head to the side and finds the source of that light -- a flame that shivers within a column of clear glass. 

Two guns in their holsters next to that plain lamp: one emblazoned with an unmistakable fleur-de-lys, and the other with a forget-me-not.

No one here with her. No one and nothing to disturb her.

The name escapes her lips without her bidding it -- “Cassian” -- and on the next breath she smells the clean hay scattered into the corners of the garret. Such a far cry from pale green walls and deep gray carpets spread lavishly over the floors, and yet this dimly-lit garret feels, strangely, safer. Safer even than the place that had come into her possession, because she had agreed to become his -- 

She only thinks his name when she repeats it, and the low-slung bed with its carefully mended and seamed sheets is just wide enough for her, and it is empty of its usual occupant.

Slowly she levers herself up to a sitting position. Tries to fight off her scowl. There is no one here to see her, or to remark upon the lines of pain cording in her face, and yet she feels compelled to hide those lines, briefly, in the depths of one of the pillows, long since beaten flat. 

Difficult to put her weight upon her ankle, too tender after an ill-advised jump from a third-storey window and a rough collision with the roads of a strange city; in the end, she sets the knife aside. Reaches for one of Chirrut’s staffs so she can lean heavily upon it. 

She thinks of the proud and worried lines in that normally serene and kind face, and Chirrut’s hands had shaken not at all upon her swollen, red skin as he bound her injuries with arnica and healing herbs.

She can still remember Baze turning on the threshold to this very room, and the odd rumble in his voice, careworn, that she had only heard but a handful of times, and then more often directed at Chirrut: “You do your job well, little sister, but have a care. I would not wish to see your recklessness tumble you into your very grave before time.”

The words seem to hang heavily on her shoulders, and by the time she’s reached the bottom of the steep steps leading away from the garret, she wishes she could burst into tears.

It must be some late or early hour indeed, she thinks, as she shuffles down a corridor lined with doors, so quiet that she can almost hear which rooms are occupied and which aren’t. 

She thinks she should feel safe, here in a barracks full of musketeers, nearly all of whom know her name. 

She doesn’t really feel safe anywhere, she thinks, hearing the stutter of her own heartbeat loud in her ears, radiating out through her fingertips, not when he’s not at her side, not when -- 

Down another set of steps and the shadows of two sentries: and Jyn’s grip on her makeshift prop tightens. 

“You should not be out of bed,” Kay says, and how he manages to look condescending even as he offers her his elbow, she doesn’t know. 

“He shouldn’t still be working,” she counters.

Kay’s mouth, already snapped into a thin line, flattens even more. “I will not say that you are wrong in your assessment.”

“Jyn,” Bodhi says, and he only seems to be hunched over, tremulous. 

She knows better of him: knows the constrained savagery with which he wields his sword, when the lives of his friends are on the line. Has fought at his side with his face slashed open and blood dripping onto his jerkin -- and he’d stepped so nimbly around her, a fierce storm of a man, relentless until he cut each one of his opponents down.

“What could he be doing still, at this hour of the night?” she asks, in the here and now. “Captain or not, he cannot still be working -- ”

Bodhi looks away. “You did not hear this from me -- but ciphered messages,” he begins.

“Rook,” Kay says, but not, she thinks, to stop him. 

Sure enough Bodhi continues, in a whisper: “Cardinals Krennic and Tarkin are still trying to rally those who would plot against the queen.”

Jyn hisses. 

“Precisely my thoughts,” Kay says. “No doubt you’ll need to shadow her again, in the days to come.”

“Not now,” Bodhi says. “You have to rest.”

“I will,” Jyn says, stepping carefully as she breaks away from them. “I will see to it that he gets some rest, too.”

They nod, and take up their watchful positions once again.

Leaving her to push past the closed door at the end of the corridor.

The desk is nearly much too large for the room itself -- and yet it seems to be drowning in papers and books and maps. Letters with the royal seal, and tiny containers for sending messages in secret. Graceful white plumes set into a hat so new the leather seems to still shine even in the failing light from the fireplace and the scant handful of lamps. 

The man behind the desk doesn’t so much as look up. Doesn’t lift his eyes from the parchment in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she asks.

“I should have come up to you hours ago.” Shadows like deep ink-hued bruises welling beneath his eyes. Silver in his hair, seeming starkly new. Straight-shouldered and steady-handed, but the weight of his new position seemed to be forcing him to sink down to his knees.

“Make it up to me now,” and Jyn sets her jaw. Draws herself up to her full height. “You know full well that Kay and Bodhi are more than capable of taking up your duties in the meantime.” 

A smile that isn’t a smile crosses Cassian’s face. For a moment, he looks so old and forlorn. “I do. And yet -- I cannot tear myself away. There is too much to learn. Too many plots are still in motion. The one that you uncovered -- ”

“And you asked me why I would not speak to you about it when I returned in haste,” she said, but not unkindly. “I still will not tell you now. You need a moment to rest. What I’m carrying with me can wait. You won’t do well as a leader, as a captain, if you run yourself into the very stones on your first night.”

He seems to start, guiltily, and she touches his cheek with gentle fingers, now, coming around the desk to tug gently on his shoulder. “Come with me,” she says.

“I -- ”

She lets her voice become firm. “Husband.”

“Wife,” and Cassian gets to his feet at last. 

She lets him gather her close, lets him pick her up and cradle her, as though they were once again crossing the threshold into the sprawl of his home.

Perhaps the same thoughts cross his mind. He nods as Kay and Bodhi salute him, and he glances over his shoulder to see them enter the office that he has just left -- but then he looks at her and she is compelled to meet his eyes, his oddly gentle moue. “I carried you a long way on our wedding night, didn’t I?”

She might snort, but she also presses her cheek to his chest. “Some bride I made, in my black dress and my bloody knives.”

“And you wonder why our queen is so insistent on you guarding her back. As for me -- I wish I could insist that you stay by my side.”

She blinks at him. “Like as not my mission orders come from you. You send me away to do my kind of work, while you do yours.”

“I know.” 

She struggles away, when they are back in the garret, and sinks gratefully onto the bed, grimacing at her injuries. 

But her attention is soon taken up by the way in which he sits down beside her: slow and labored. Alarm makes her move her hands toward him, as he undoes the clasps and straps of his armor with shaking fingers.

“If you have been injured all along and have only been hiding it from me,” she begins, heart gripped by sudden agony.

He doesn’t reply: he turns to her instead. A mute plea curves his lips downward.

“Cassian,” Jyn says, and she draws him close and kisses him.

The shiver that makes the bedclothes rustle, that makes their discarded clothes rustle, might have come from her and might have come from him.

“Jyn,” he whispers against her cheek.

She pushes him down to the pillows -- his look of shocked gratitude draws a smile from her, a smile she knows is sharp and fierce, and she kisses him, full of love and full of desire.

He moans her name, shivering beneath her, and she nips at the corners of his mouth, a little too roughly but he grasps her naked hips and she hopes his fingers leave bruises behind, so she’ll have something to keep his memory close, no matter what happens in the next few hours, the next few days.

He cries out softly when she pulls away from his mouth -- and she soothes him by running her tongue over his skin, by pressing her teeth gently into the skin that stretches tautly down his throat as he tips his head back in an agony of need.

“No one will mind,” she murmurs into the scars scattered over his chest. “If they hear you calling my name in the night -- no one will mind.” And: “I want to hear it from you, too. Hear you say that I make you feel good -- ”

Her reward is him rearing roughly up from the flat pillows, is his single-minded determined kiss that threatens to render her into needy ash.

And he kisses her like he wants to consume her or like he wants her to consume him -- she wants to oblige him on that second point and yet when he kisses her she can feel the intensity of him, the sheer force of him, overwhelming her, making her belly cramp with the nearness of him, with the raging fire of his touch -- 

Somehow she finds the strength to pull away from him, to topple him back to the bed -- his eyes and his mouth wide wide wide and she smiles even as she shakes, down to press a kiss over his heart and then -- further down. Her fingers tangle in the hairs curling up from his skin, sparse at first over his chest and then a dark narrow line, down from his navel to his groin, to his prick hard and curved against his thigh.

Up and down his legs, too, he bears silver-faint scars, lines etched into his skin, and she shakes her head so the memories fall away. Bends to him, warm breath making him shift restlessly and grit out her name. She can hear his hands clenching into fists in the bedclothes, and she doesn’t want to draw this out any longer. Her mouth is watering at the sight of him, and she presses a kiss that is entirely the opposite of chaste to the head of his prick -- and then she takes him in hand. Opens her mouth. She takes him in, the length and the girth of him, the musk of him filling up her every strained breath.

She can hear his head falling back onto the pillows. She can hear him muttering, words falling from his mouth, prayers and curses, as she keeps licking and sucking and pumping -- hollowing her cheeks and pressing down, till she chokes on him and does so happily -- moving her hand in the scant space left between the base of him and her stretched-open mouth -- 

“The look on your face, I -- please -- ”

She’s running out of breath, she’s laid bare by his gasps, and she shifts so she can press her sex against the bed, so she can fight off just a little of the sweet madness that is claiming her as surely as he is already lost in it -- 

“Jyn.” The word is harsh only because it is a warning.

She doesn’t move from where she is now: except for the flutter of her throat as she swallows around him, again and again and again. As she moves her hand, faster and faster, not to hurry him along but to make him fall to pieces, to give him what he so desperately needs -- 

He shouts, not her name and not any words she can understand. He fills her mouth up and she feels the excess drip from her lips, onto his skin.

She pulls away, slow so she doesn’t cough or choke.

As she swallows for the last time she closes her eyes, shivering all over, lost in her own agony now, and she nearly flies up in shock when she feels his fingers on her skin -- 

Cassian is right there: his eyes gone soft and sated and languid but his hands, oh his hands: one planted between her shoulders, steadying her, it seems, and the other glides down between her breasts, down over her belly and lower still.

She buckles forward with a soft cry as he drives three fingers into her sex at once -- her forehead against his shoulder as he works her hard and fast, as she rocks her hips frantically, as he murmurs into her ear: “You are so good to me, you know just what I need and I know what you need and I will be very good for you, I promise I’ll make it good, anything you want, but -- come for me, now, come for me, show me -- ”

Lost, Jyn is soon lost, and she can’t see him anymore, helpless, thrown toward the glory of her peak, hanging desperately on his filthy words, on the movements of his hand -- 

Try as she might to shape his name, she fails, at the very moment of her climax.

A long, long moment passes, in which she tries to pull herself back together.

And Cassian is smiling at her, when she blinks and raises her suddenly heavy head from his chest. She is sprawled on top of him now, and there is something impossibly gentle in the curve of his cheek, in the tilt of his lips.

She can’t help but laugh, softly -- she muffles it in his skin and he rumbles with her, delighted. 

“Tell me,” he coaxes.

“A fine pair we make,” she giggles. “A crutch for me and several days’ sleep for you.”

He says, suddenly serious, “You, too.”

“Not sleep,” she begins.

“I meant,” and he takes her hand that is on his chest in both of his, “that I need you as much as I need that sleep. That rest. I need to rest and I know I won’t be able to. Neither will you get it.”

“Duty,” she says, wooden, only because it’s safe to show him her true self.

“My jailer and yours.”

“I’d rather you were my jailer,” she says, impulsively. “Like we were when we were newly wed.”

“I’d rather you were mine, except that you already are and you always will be. And I your willing captive, always.”

“You do know how to say sweet things.” Jyn almost laughs -- and she turns her head and kisses him instead.

“Sleep,” Cassian says, softly. “Just for a moment.”

“Be here when I wake up,” she says, and she doesn’t mean it for an order. To her it’s the opposite: it’s a wish.

“And you: don’t you leave me.”

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing was inspired by [myalchod](http://myalchod.tumblr.com/) and [this amazing gifset](http://myalchod.tumblr.com/post/158648324164/p0rth0s-the-musketeers-the-swordsman) of Tom Burke as Athos, Comte de la Fere. I had told her some time ago that Athos seems to have the same mix of grit, determination, and weariness as Cassian Andor. Hence, this.
> 
> Spanish-language lyrics near the end of Chapter One are from the song "Quiéreme Mucho".
> 
> Chapter Two is written for Prompt Eight: "agony, fingers, shiver" (and all three words have to appear in the same fic) at [@rebelcaptainprompts](http://rebelcaptainprompts.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr. Prompt Eight was provided by [@goingtothetardis](http://goingtothetardis.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I am also on tumblr myself -- look me up [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


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